I sometimes make fun of Men’s Rights activists for their assorted misunderstandings of feminism. But this guy gets it! I’ve never seen the essence of feminism distilled into a comic as ably as this.
It brings back memories of the first time I read Andrea Dworkin’s classic “Intercourse: You’re Not Getting Any Unless You Pay for My Dinner.”
Found on the Men’s Rights subreddit, with 100 upvotes.
H/T — r/againstmensrights
NOTE: POST CONTAINS SARCASM
There are women who do stuff to hurt men and then play the “sexism card,” but stuff like that is pretty rare compared to male discrimination and violence against women. The women also aren’t doing that stuff because they were socialized to behave that way, so it’s a totally different issue.
@weirdwood It could be an east coast thing.
OK folks, might need your help here.
I’ve been having a bit of debate over the last 24 ours with some friends about the Chrissie Hynde thing. Well, they’re probably ex-friends now; it’s got a bit heated.
It started when a mate put up a post slagging her off and saying she was “dumb”.
Now my counter argument is that, whilst her comments are problematic and should be countered, there’s something a bit unsavoury about blaming a rape victim for victim blaming in a culture where that view is so prevalent. In essence my argument is that some lies are so big that even the victims of that lie may believe it and repeat it, but you don’t go after the victim for that, you go after the people who promote that lie in the first place.
It’s all gone horrible and the basic view seems to be that rape victims especially have a responsibility to counter rape culture. I’m even getting that from a woman who was herself raped. Obviously I’m not very comfortable trying to argue with her about that.
I think the best thing is just to throw the towel in; it’s too much of a clusterfuck now, but anybody have any thoughts on this?
This reminds me of a godawful meme I saw on Facebook: it portrayed a female cosplayer getting compliments and called “empowered” on one side, on the other was a male artist drawing the character (presumably the same the cosplayer is dressed up as) while being called a sexist and generally being admonished.
The (il)logic here? It’s unfair that women can dress up as characters they like and are complimented, but those poor widdle male artists are condemned for drawing similar-looking female characters.
Um, yeah, big problem with all that: one is a flesh-and-blood woman who, of her own accord, decided to partake in cosplay – there is agency there. The other is a male artist who is pretty much able to portray a female character in any way he wants, often in a very sexualized fashion, and able to put them in situations where they are assaulted or raped or tortured or any number of horrible things based on the character’s gender – there is no agency there.
We had something similar on our wedding anniversary last year. We treated ourselves to one of the most expensive restaurants in the UK, and when the menus arrived my wife was very surprised to see that hers didn’t have prices and mine did – the tacit assumption clearly being that I was paying for everything. So we asked for a menu with prices for her in a tone that I hope suggested “you might want to rethink those patriarchal assumptions there”.
Like you, we were paying out of our joint account, but my wife said that she’d quite fancy knowing how much we were paying – especially given the prices. And the punchline is that she’s by far the biggest earner out of us two – in a typical year we’re talking three or four times my income.
@Alan Robertshaw. If it helps, for some rape victims, taking responsibility for *some* of their actions helps them to feel less helpless. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Chrissie Hynde reacting that way to *her* rape. The problem is when that kind of advice is thrown out as prescriptive and especially in a “what were you expecting” sort of way.
andiexist,
Thanks. I knew my instinct to not give him any of the benefit of the doubt was correct. I love how it never occurred to him that a woman might wear yoga pants for some reason other than boner pleasing. For example yoga. Or because they’re comfortable. I actually wear them when I’m just running an errand and am too lazy to put on real clothes. They’re basically sweats to me. That men think we only wear them to show off our butts is pretty hilarious. Plus, he drew that woman’s yoga panted butt the same way comics artists draw boob armor. Clothing doesn’t act like a damn suction cup in the real world!
I think the worst part was when he claimed evolution makes men want to protect us if we please their boners. If we feel threatened and uncomfortable by street harassment, how is that protecting us?
Or maybe the worst part was when his evo psych explanation for his creepiness made her jump into bed with him. Since when did that ever happen?
Yeah, he has some problematic ones. And some amazing ones. Some sexist ones. Some celebrating amazing women. Some nasty, some wonderful.
People: we’re complicated.
Re: Chrissie Hynde, I’d say it’s a classic case of internalized misogyny. She basically took what society always told women then (and still often does today) too much to heart. An understandable mistake given the times she grew up in, but things haven’t yet evolved so much that this viewpoint is uncommon. It’s still very much the norm, and that needs to be changed if the law is ever to become as clear on rape as it is on other crimes. Lots of victims do revisit their assaults and blame what they were wearing, how much they’d been drinking, etc. In a perverse way, Alan, you’re right: it is an effort, however messed-up, at taking some kind of control over a moment when control was violently wrested away from them. That doesn’t make it any less wrong, however.
Also, didn’t she mention that the bikers who gang-raped her wore “I (heart) rape” slogans on THEIR clothing? These guys were pretty much advertising their own intents on their shirts and jackets. Why does no one blame men’s clothing the way they do women’s? These guys were literally dressed as rapists. Won’t somebody think about teh menz????
Not to mention that the original designer is responsible for making her look that way in the first place, whereas the cosplayer can only choose to dress as her or not to dress as her.
@sn0rkmaiden, andiexist
seems to be answered by andiexist …
A closer look, prompted by andiexist, and I’ve changed my mind. He’s got a whole section of his site for “Bonerman”, the super hero with the permanent erection whose super powers are activated by sexual displays, and women *have to* give him what he wants or they’re burned alive / lose their cats up trees (though the comic uses the word pussy instead, of course). Gross.
So, yeah, gross. On one hand he can write an awesome comic about Grace Hooper, and another… this. What exactly is the shape of the cognitive dissonance required to do this? Where’s the disconnect?
@weirwoodtreehugger,
That’s the part that always boggles me. “what do you mean, drawing her in that outfit is sexist? She’s a real empowered woman, she can do what she wants!” “… uh, no, dood, you’re a real empowered human who’s drawing a picture, she has to wear exactly what you draw her in, dimwit.” Just like the cosplay meme @NickNameNick mentioned. Amazing how women are so *compliant* when these doods are drawing them, huh?
@ Nothing & Bina
Yeah, I suggested the internalised misogyny possibility, but that didn’t go down too well. It was dismissed as patronising and suggesting CH didn’t have agency. The general consensus was that rape culture wasn’t that prevalent.
The weird thing is, whilst the first quote is from a guy, that latter one is from a woman. I must confess I was surprised by that. I don’t usually get worked up over internet discussions but this one is a bit unusual. I suppose it’s because the people involved are all pretty progressive on everything else.
Anyway, I’ve decided discretion is the better part of valour and suggested we just agree to differ. Our positons are pretty entrenched by now.
One *could* see if he were up for a respectful discussion, or would answer some questions.
My take is that he’s neither devil nor saint. We can’t apply a binary to everyone or every situation.
Or, as a recently retired gentleman put it…. http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/885/335/7b3.jpg
@Alan – About the Chrissie comments, I have met other survivors who take responsibility for their rapes. It seems to me to be most prevalent with people who have a high desire for control in their lives. Some how, if they had made different choices, they could have changed the attack. Rape makes you feel so helpless that you will do almost anything to feel empowered again. It took me a long time and a lot of therapy for me to understand it wasn’t my fault. Just my 2 cents.
It was either WWTH or Bina who introduced me to the word “Brogressive”… Which I think is a perfect description of both the gross-ass comic artist and the gross-ass* rape culture deniers Alan’s talking about.
*The Chrissie Hynde situation is a tough one, but that second quote boils down to “She’s lying to sell her book,” and that is fucking vomitous.
@ Kestrel
Thanks for that. I appreciate you feeling able to speak about it.
The idea that self blame may be a way of either claiming some control or reassuring someone that they can avoid future trouble if they just do something different was referenced. It became a bit of a ‘conversation of doom’ generally though so best abandoned.
As much as MRAs and other right-wingers annoy me, brogressives are actually offensive to me and I really can’t explain why. I know it’s partially due to the lying – so, so much lying – but past that, I have no idea.
Be my guest if that’s what you’d like to do. But don’t expect the rest of us to. I’ve given these guys that are otherwise reasonable but then bust out the horrific misogyny types the benefit of the doubt and tried to engage before. It never goes anywhere.
What respectful conversation is there to be had with someone who makes a comic with a rapist superhero and thinks street harassment will turn a woman on if he just mansplains some evo psych to her?
No. Not a devil. Not an other. A human who made a choice to publish a bunch of really misogynistic comics. I still don’t see why I should be okay with this or dismiss it as no big deal.
SFHC,
Me too and I think it’s because they should know better. The same applies to white feminism and terfs. If you can grasp that some kinds of oppressions are pervasive and real, it should be only a short hop to intersectionality, but these people are so damn stubborn that short hop might as well be a leap across the grand canyon. They just can never seem to do it and it’s so frustrating.
http://i.imgur.com/tXYT7Ti.gif
Meanwhile, I have zero expectations of right wing reactionaries and have just written them off, no muss, no fuss. The progressives, TERFS and white feminists are the people you fruitlessly try to reason with.
Femenism has nothing to do dumb ass crazy women. Feminism actually pushes women to be financially independent from men. Chilvery is what allows women to be crazy. I refuse to be around a woman for more than an hour, because there is strong chance if her being level 7 or above crazy. Level 7 or above means she is a potential serial killer or plays the false rape game. The scale of crazy is 10 based system. 0.1 to 2 is tolerant crazy. 3.0 to 4.5 is a baseline crazy. 5.5 to 6. 9 is borderline danger zone crazy. Anything above a 7.1 is considered ran as far as you can crazy.
Yep! It doesn’t help that, when there *are* attempts at making the costumes/outfits of superheroines and other female comicbook characters less sexualized, those changes are quickly undone because many male fans prefer the sexualized version and get up in arms over it.
As far as cosplay goes – most of the criticism is geared towards women, not men. Rarely are they admonished for cosplaying as a certain character or even making an alternate version of that character. But, of course, female cosplayers are called “hypocrites” because they dare to take issue with harassment at conventions while wearing visually accurate costumes of oft-sexualized female characters.
Given the Catch-22 logic at play, I wouldn’t be surprised that – if they did an alternate non-sexualized outfit for that female character – they’d be condemned for ruining a “classic design.” Because you apparently can’t fucking win with these assholes.
None, probably.
The idea that you have to give an artist the benefit of the doubt, even when their work acts as clear enough evidence to what their views are, is such an anti-intellectual tactic. It’s used by people – including many artists themselves – to try and silence criticism and conflate it to personalized attacks. The problem being that, when it comes to Art and Entertainment, whatever you put out does represent you implicitly. It’s not “unfair” for people to assume you may be racist or sexist or whatever when the material you put out comes off as such.
Perhaps you can argue it’s “satire” – but that doesn’t work unless it’s mocking the view being presented. In this case, it’s pretty obvious his portrayals are representative of his own thoughts.
Just read “Bonerman”, and I’m all full of WTF. I do hope it was just satire on guys who really do think their dicks are superpowered and therefore entitled to all the stimulation it takes them to sploodge down a burning building or rescue a frightened kitty (and if I were that kitty, I’d be a lot more frightened of a super-powered dick, when anyone with good sense could just have put up a ladder). But I dunno, you guys…I just don’t know.
…and when I say “I just don’t know”, I’m not giving him the benefit of the doubt; I’m giving him the detriment.